Act 13 Challengers Also File for Expedited Supreme Court Hearing

for its appeal of a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down the zoning portions of the Keystone State’s new Marcellus Shale law.

On Friday, attorneys for the cluster of communities—including Cecil and Peters townships—a medical doctor and a nonprofit that filed the challenge to Act 13 that spawned the ruling have joined the state in its request—but not for the same reasons.

“The inherent uncertainty of this court’s pending determination for municipalities and local officials and municipalities and local officials to perform any effective land-use planning,” attorneys said in the motion to adjoin, which was filed Friday. “Additionally, the residential and commercial growth of Pennsylvania municipalities is currently hampered if not practically halted during the pendency of this court’s decision.”

In its request for an expedited hearing, attorney's for the DEP and PUC wrote:

“That decision has gutted Act 13 of one of its key interstitial parts and has created significant uncertainty for the Commission, the Department, and the regulated community at this critical juncture in the Marcellus Shale development,” an attorney for the Public Utility Commission and the state Department of Environmental protection wrote in the court filing. “For example, the Commonwealth Court's permanent injunction threatens to disrupt time-sensitive economic development projects ongoing in eastern and western Pennsylvania that will create and retain thousands of jobs—including but not limited to projects at the Philadelphia Refinery in Philadelphia—and the former Horsehead Corporation site in Beaver County that are of substantial public importance.”

To read more about the initial challenge to Act 13, .

To read more about the Commonwealth Court’s decision to strike down portions of the state’s new law governing Marcellus Shale, .

To read more about the appeal that that ruling, .

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